Giovanni Boldini | Master of Swish

Master of Swish

- Time Magazine, April 3, 1933, p. 28-29

With her tongue ever so slightly in her check, Mrs. Chester Dale, collector and authority on French painting, helped organize four months ago an exhibition of the paintings of the late Alphonse Bouguereau, barroom decorator par excellence of the Gay Nineties.

Critics in the chill light of a formal art gallery were not impressed with the "Back to Bouguereau" movement.

Karl von Blaas | Academic Classicism painter

Karl von Blaas (28 April 1815 in Nauders - 19 March 1894 in Vienna) was an Austrian painter known for his portraits and religious compositions executed on canvas as well as in the form of frescoes.

Karl Von Blaas was born to a peasant family at Nauders in the Tyrol on 28 April 1815.

He is best known as a history painter and painter of portraits. His first art lessons were in Innsbruck, where he received an education as a writer.

But he was more interested in art, and so, like many painters at the time, he aspired to visit Italy to realize his goal of an in-depth art education. His uncle, a judge in Verona, recognized his talent and gave him financial support for study in Venice, which he undertook in 1832.

Theodor Josef Ethofer | Genre painter

Theodor Josef Ethofer (October 29, 1849 in Vienna - Leopoldstadt; † October 24, 1915 in Baden near Vienna) was an Austrian painter, known for Figure, genre and Austrian native costume painting.

Theodor Ethofer studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna under Carl Wurzinger.

He spent the period from 1872-1887 in Italy, visiting Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, Sicily, Spain and Tunis, among other places. After a stay in Vienna, he settled in Salzburg in 1898, where he owned a studio in the Künstlerhaus.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | The Wave / L'Onda, 1882

Each summer between 1879 and 1882 Pierre-Auguste Renoir traveled to Wargemont near Dieppe on the Normandy coast to visit his friend and patron Paul Bérard.

Renoir and Bérard, a banker and French diplomat, had met in 1878, when the artist was still struggling to find collectors for his Impressionist canvases.

Renoir and Bérard quickly formed a bond, leading to numerous commissioned portraits of the financier’s children and affording the artist a comfortable place to go for the summer well removed from the oppressive heat of Paris.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | The Wave, 1882 | Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, United States

Gustave Caillebotte at the Museum Barberini

Gustave Caillebotte | Couple on a Walk, 1881 | Museum Barberini

In the 1860s the seaside resorts in Normandy became the most popular summer retreats of the Parisian bourgeoisie. Here a young couple (likely the artist and his partner, Charlotte Berthier) are strolling past the luxurious Villa italiennein Trouville.

The red parasol adds an accent to the picture, in which fresh green tones are dominant. The depiction of the figures from behind allows viewers to put themselves in the role of the vacationers.

Every summer from 1880-1884, Gustave Caillebotte spent a number of weeks in Normandy, where he sailed in regattas and painted.

During this time he produced around fifty depictions of the area surrounding Trouville, a beach resort that had grown into a favorite holiday destination of the Parisian upper classes since the mid-nineteenth century.